


Never Mine to Lose

by shakespearespaz



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-13 20:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben and Rachel have marriage issues, Miles is crashing with them, he and Bass babysit a lot and the Blackout may or may not happen. A pre-series fic with Rachel/Miles as the focus. AU already because Bass and Miles are in Chicago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_3 months before_

When Miles returned from his second tour, Rachel and Ben found room in their small townhouse for him.

Miles was never good with kids, but they were his way into their chaotic life. Ben was a workaholic, always had been, and Rachel was too. It was always a given that their work was revolutionary, strange and technical and spilled into their home life.

His brother fought against the chaos; he expected his home neat and tidy and forced the separation of work and personal life. For Rachel, the lines blurred more easily, but she usually acquiesced.

Miles might not have known what to do with the thick notebooks and numerous flash drives his brother and his wife brought home, or what to do when during a particularly stressful week when Ben snapped at Rachel to get them off the kitchen table. He did, however, have a fair store of funny faces to keep tiny Danny entertained and laughing when his parents looked like they were about to collapse from exhaustion.

Miles had grown up listening to his brother’s dreams and teasing him about them, but even as he teased he knew Ben was more driven than Miles would ever be. Rachel was his lovely wife, he had his two blonde children and he was halfway to that house with a picket fence.

Miles knew that Ben loved her.

He also watched her struggle against the role he’d built for her in his mind. Miles could make such observations as the outsider. He was the voyeur stopped around the corner by hushed, irritated voices arguing in the kitchen.

He told himself he listened for the sake of both.

It was when he would turn to find Charlie watching him that he would tear himself away. He’d balance her on his lap as he plucked out notes on her toy keyboard, drowning out the whispers below, where two of the three people he cared about most danced too close to hurting each other.

Rachel was one of his oldest friends.

She had met him before Ben, at a college party through mutual acquaintances who had promptly ditched them.

Years later, Rachel would be right; their affair had been short and ugly.

In other ways it was short and simple. She was stressed about her life after graduating, he about his enlistment, but he made her laugh and her laugh helped lift the fear that hung around his neck.

Still, their separation was rough and everyone always remembers the bad instead of the good. He went off to his life and she was convinced to go to grad school by his brother.

Miles always found it funny that she ended up better at whatever it was they did than Ben.

He never knew what prompted Rachel to start writing. But he couldn’t help but write back and she back to him and he back to her. Before he knew it, he was using half of his phone privilege to call his mother, half to call Rachel. There was no promise of intimacy, very little talk of their college fumbling, only two people discussing Bass, the weather, swapping terrible puns, giggling about the tactics Ben used to pull all-nighters, and Rachel inevitably sneaking in some science babble.

Mostly, they just knew that the voice on the other end was genuine when it asked “how are you?”

He could have forgiven her for not telling him that she started dating Ben; he half expected the two to hook up at least briefly. It was hearing news of their engagement from his mother out of the blue that shook him. It took a long conversation with Bass, one where his friend saw straight through his lies but kept nodding anyway, for Miles to force himself to the justification that he and Rachel were good friends. He would be happy for her.

When he saw her, she looked happy.

If Ben could keep that trouble-free smile across her face forever, the one that lit up the room as she walked down the aisle and only grew wider as she promptly tripped on the train of her gown, Miles could live with them.

Her constant communication faltered understandably after Charlie was born. At every Thanksgiving, Christmas or plain old dinner party he could make, however, Miles saw no reason to doubt that Rachel and Ben were both on the path they wanted.

But the family whose home he became a guest in was far from the perfect couple he’d watched laugh as they shoved cake into each other’s faces.

Then again, he knew that if anyone could keep up facades, it was Ben.

He thought staying with them might be difficult, but Miles hadn’t known how difficult. The dull ache of buried feelings didn’t start until Ben finished helping Miles lug suitcases upstairs. He dumped them into their small office—Rachel’s office, with every nook and crevice and decoration proudly declaring that the space was hers—and pointed out that the futon there was the only spare bed they had.

Miles was saving his money, otherwise he would’ve turned around and found his own apartment; his other option was Bass, but Bass had a new girlfriend and Miles figured he’d give them a little while to themselves.

It was only temporary, Miles told himself, as he fell asleep staring at the worn and broken spines of books he knew Rachel had turned the pages of again and again. He remembered them from the simple memories they had made in her college dorm room.

In the Matheson household, Miles learned that one always knew when a deadline was close and he tried to help out the best he could. Ben was often in a mad scramble for something; Rachel was slower, more conscientious.

Miles liked to watch her work.

He would relieve her of dinner duty, mostly so he could steal glances at the faces she made while concentrating, propping herself up at the counter and looking over whatever Ben had sent her urgently. Miles knew how easy it was for her to disappear into her own world and he could tell when she left them. He could clang pots and pans around as much as he liked and he couldn’t get her to blink. As soon as the sound of a toy truck falling echoed behind her though, she was on her feet without a glance back, ready to smooth injuries or solve sibling squabbles or rebuild another block castle.

If Ben had disappeared into another room, or wasn’t home yet, Miles liked to pretend too. Pretend that Ben’s perfect family was his, that it was his children who brought the beaming grin back to their mother’s face.

He could never have built what Ben had, but just for a few hours, it was his.

Except that Rachel never was. Just like she had never been Ben’s, but his brother was still figuring that part out.

It was just another Saturday afternoon when Rachel and Ben seemed too caught up in their project, and Miles offered to take the kids out to give them some peace and quiet. He and Bass took them to the park and ice cream, laughing at the thought of themselves as parents.

He expected to return to find the two refreshed, helped by the time alone. 

Instead, Ben was right at the table where Miles had left him. 

Rachel was in her office, Miles’ room, sobbing silently. He shut the door softly and she tried to stand hastily, wiping tears away.

“Rachel?”

“Not now, Miles.” She was quiet, trying to regain composure, to leave the scene and force her life back to normal, where it had never been.

“Bass and Ben are with the kids,” he reasoned.

He wanted to tell her she could stay, that he would not cross the line of propriety when it came to offering comfort to an old friend and lover who was married to his brother and whose distress felt like his own. The line was a fine one and zigzagged around unfairly.

She sunk down to sit on the edge of the bed. She let Miles find his place next to her.

“I don’t—” he started, “I don’t like—”

“Us fighting?” she supplied, “Nobody does. Luckily Charlie and Danny don’t seem to notice.”

He swallowed.

“I don’t like you getting hurt.”

“Ben doesn’t hurt me. He can be…insensitive at times and—”

“Condescending?”

“No—”

“I’ve watched you argue—”

“I’m not going to fight with you too, Miles.”

He fell silent at his name on her lips.

There was a light rap on the door and Rachel called for whoever it was to come in. Bass opened the door slightly and peeked in at the two sitting modestly on the bed.

“Charlie’s asking for you, Rachel.”

“Okay. Thanks, Bass.”

“No problem.”

He left and Rachel rose, followed soon by Miles.

“We should go save Sebastian from the children,” she told him lightly, heading for the door.

“ _Rachel._ ”

She stopped.

“You know I’m here if you need anything, right?”

“Sometimes I wish you weren’t _here_ here,” she sighed. A tired half-smile found its way across her face and she let his arm brush hers for a moment. “But yeah. I know.”

Ben glanced up at them as they came downstairs, but Rachel knew the look in his eyes. It read easily that whatever had happened, he didn’t care.


	2. Chapter 2

_2 months before_

Rachel didn’t know what to do about Charlie’s birthday.  

As they rode back from a trip to grocery store, she let Miles drive because she knew he missed it. The silence between them in the car wasn’t comfortable, and neither was the shopping. Picking out lunches for the week had never been a task Rachel envisioned herself doing with Miles, and she wondered briefly if as a bachelor he had ever lived on anything other than chips, Mexican take-out and beer. She decided that wasn’t fair, but he was rather surprised that so many varieties of laundry detergent existed as Rachel stood in front of the shelf trying to decide.

Rachel focused too hard on her coffee cup, her finger tracing the bumps on the top.

“Charlie will be five in two weeks.”

Miles nodded but kept his eyes on the road.

“You said if I needed anything…and Ben and I don’t have any time to plan a party, not with our project so close and I was wondering—”

“You want me to?”

“I could help,” she added hastily, “But I really can’t do everything. I don’t even know what she expects. She hasn’t said a word about it. So really just some friends and cake and maybe some hats—”

“I can do it, Rachel.” He glanced at her.

“Really?”

“I might need Bass’ help.”

Miles heard a small noise escape from Rachel. He realized in a few seconds that it was her stifling a giggle.

“What?” he asked.

“You and Bass planning a party for a five year old? I didn’t know they taught that in Marine basic training.” She struggled to stay serious.

“You’d be surprised at the versatility of our skills.”

He could see her smiling out of the corner of his eye.

“Just no fire or anything. And include Bass, please.”

Miles called him the next day, after the house was empty with the kids off at preschool and kindergarten and the parents off to work. He didn’t expect Bass to pick up and was not disappointed, but the phone buzzed with a text within minutes.

They met at Bass’ apartment and he chuckled when Miles told him what their mission was, but didn’t hesitate to get started. Neither had much surplus income to spend on things like decorations, but they each had a creative streak in them when they tried.

They decided that their fine motor skills couldn’t even rival those of a five year old after battling tissue paper and pipe cleaners for an hour to make flowers.

The two stared at their sad efforts decorating the floor.

“I think we were a bit ambitious,” Miles commented drily.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s throw them out and try something else.”

“Hey, good time went into making those!” Bass protested.

“Yeah and they’re ugly.”

As they cleaned up the wilting blossoms, Bass teased his friend.

“Is it really Charlie you’re trying to impress, Miles, or her mom? Maybe you should just go buy her real flowers and maybe a bottle of wine and find an evening when Ben isn’t around…”

“Bass—” Miles warned.

Bass held up his hands, which were half-glued to the colorful paper.

“I’m just kidding with you, Miles.”

“Rachel doesn’t need me to mess up her home any more. Besides, making her kids happy is as good as making her happy.”

“You make it sound so straight forward. I mean, I’m sure she has other needs, like any woman…”

“Bass—” The warning voice was back. “It isn’t all about sex.”

Bass raised his eyebrows questioningly at Miles.

“Okay,” Miles conceded, “Most of the time it’s about sex. But this isn’t. It’s about making Rachel’s little girl smile on her birthday.”

Bass grinned at him.

“I know, Miles. But let’s try a different approach. Like a party store.”

The party store provided ample inspiration and by the end of the day, they both had a plan of action more solid than tissue paper. Miles pulled Rachel into the office after dinner and told her what he and Bass had come up with so far.

Her eyes lit up and he could read the promise of joy in her stressed face.

“That sounds perfect, Miles.”

She pulled him into a tight hug before she left. He let his hand rest on her neck and never wanted his fingertips to forget the sensation of her fine hair brushing across them.

That night he dreamt of soft lips against his skin, parting to smile up at him.

He awoke sweaty and lost and ashamed, her handprint resting around him like the morning sun streaming through the thin curtains.

The day of the party luck finally decided to be on his side and the skies were bright blue, a spring day that hinted at summer around the bend. Rachel helped Bass and Miles set up, while Ben chased the other two excited children around the house. With Rachel’s help, Miles had sent out invitations to small group of Charlie’s friends, mostly because none of the adults wanted to deal with more than ten kindergarteners running around a backyard no bigger than a postage stamp.

The kids started arriving around noon and Bass kept them entertained until everyone got there with a supervised game of duck-duck-goose.

Soon, Rachel began lining them up outside and Ben appeared armed with a camera.

Miles and Bass had dropped by the local fire station earlier that week to ask for a favor. The local men were all too happy to help and for the next hour they showed around a handful of eager and amazed five year olds. They let them climb one-by-one into the fire truck, slid down the pole multiple times in encore performances, let the kids try on their helmets and even helped the birthday girl operate one of the fire hoses.

The children were elated, each one boasting how one day they would be a fireman and wear cool jackets and help people. They tittered away as the group trekked back to the house for hot dogs, cake and presents.

Charlie and Danny were both asleep as soon as their head hit the pillows that night.

Miles knew he would remember the day for a long time—Charlie’s girlish laughter, Danny with ketchup smeared all over his face, Bass’ genuine grins as he got to be part of a family again, Ben with his digital camera trying to save it all for the day his children would no longer be as young and innocent, and Rachel. Rachel’s brow had finally unknotted and the only distress he saw from her all day was her panicking when they didn’t have enough paper plates.

After the kids were in bed, the four finished cleaning up.

When the last scrap of wrapping paper had been recycled, Ben’s hand found the small of Rachel’s back and the two drifted upstairs to their bedroom together. Passing the foot of the stairs, Miles couldn’t help but see the tender kiss they shared as they paused on the landing at the top.

Bass wasn’t an idiot and he took his friend gently by the arm.

“Let’s go back to my place, Miles. We deserve a drink.”

Miles nodded absently and followed him out to the car.

Even as he swirled golden liquid around a tumbler later that night, he couldn’t shake the feeling in the pit of his stomach. Although he might live in the middle of Rachel’s life, he was nothing more than an outsider staring in, gazing wistfully at what he could never have.


	3. Chapter 3

_One month before_

When Bass broke up with his girlfriend, Miles was hardly surprised. He dutifully stayed by his friend’s side for the week or so after, helping with spontaneous fits of emotions and ready with a distracting night out drinking or in drinking and watching marathoning reality shows. Bass’ significant others never tended to stay long, although his relationships were growing more substantial than the one night stands Miles normally expected from him.

Apparently Bass had been pretty serious and Miles had noted that moving in together was a step forward. Still, when he ended up intoxicated on his couch every other night, Miles could hardly see how it was healthy.

“You have it good, Miles,” he slurred out.

“What do you mean?”

“You found your one. That mythical being…with perfect, well, everything…we always…dreamed or fantasized or…”

Miles was too caught up on how drunken Bass managed to use multi-syllabic words to think too hard about his musings.

The next day Bass offered for Miles to move in with him. When he considered it rationally, Miles knew exactly how stupid turning him down was. It would have made much more sense than trying to keep squeezing into the Matheson household.

Still, Miles also knew exactly why he opted to stay.

He was a masochist in that sense; Rachel had no obligations to him, and he no right to pursue her in any form. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave yet.

Miles used the kids as an excuse, claiming that Ben and Rachel needed him to help even more as their major project spiraled closer to conclusion.

He regretted the decision within the week.

It wasn’t due to anything the Mathesons did; on the contrary for a while Rachel seemed to be the one who kept later hours. Ben made it home earlier and thanked Miles profusely for his help. He spent more time with his brother and Miles hadn’t felt more at home in a long time.

The night Bass called on them in a drunken stupor was the night he truly felt he had overstayed his welcome.

It was Rachel—of course it was Rachel—who answered the door.

Miles was at the landing and recognized the slurred voice asking for him immediately. Bass broke down as soon as Miles reached the bottom, before Rachel could turn around and call for her brother-in-law.

“Why does it never work out?” he bemoaned loudly and dramatically, as the emotions fuelled by intoxication started to come.

Rachel ushered him in and shut the door before the neighbors could notice.

“Take him into the living room. I’ll get some water.” Miles put an arm around his friend and headed that way.

Ben was in the kitchen, the kids upstairs preparing for bed.

“God, I hope he didn’t drive here,” she worried to her husband as he took a disturbed glance and found a glass for water. Rachel tried to take it from him, but he nodded at the stairs.

“You go tuck Charlie and Danny in. I’ll deal with this.”

She knew it wasn’t the right time to argue but she did it anyway.

“I know why Bass is here and I can help. Besides, the kids were asking for you.”

She wrapped her fingers around the glass.

“It’s my house, Rachel, and I’m going to take care of the emergencies happening here.”

She almost laughed in mocking disbelief.

“It’s my house too, Ben.”

“Fine, it’s our house, but the mother of my children needs to go take care of them.”

Before her mouth could drop open, Miles called from the living room.

“Rachel?”

She took the glass violently from Ben, spilling most of it in the process, and stormed into the living room.

Miles tried to read the furrowed brow, tried to discern her state of mind from the clenched jaw. Her shoulders were tense and near her ears, and his hand snaked away from Bass to soothe them.

Rachel snapped her blue eyes to him.

“Don’t touch me.”

He was immediately back stabilizing Bass.

The glass of water was given to Bass, and Rachel helped him drink. She narrowed her eyes more when some of it didn’t quick make it and splashed down his shirt.

“Rachel, it’s not much help at this point.”

“It’s better than nothing,” came her curt reply.

Bass was a sentimental, bawling mess before long. Miles could sense Rachel’s frustration and knew that it mostly was her revulsion at Bass that kept her rage from erupting into tears too. It took an hour, but they got him clean, calm and asleep on the couch. Rachel and Miles took shifts watching him throughout the night.

Bass opened his eye groggily just as dawn crept through window. He lifted his head to find Rachel sitting cross legged in the middle of the carpet.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Not great.”

“Good.”

It was probably the coldest thing he’d ever heard her say. Rachel was the thoughtful one, absent-minded but brilliant, and sweet and caring.

Now, however, she was pissed.

“I’m sorry, Rache—”

“You’re hung over on my living room couch, Sebastian. My children are upstairs and I’m going to have to explain to them why their honorary uncle Bass stumbled through the door shouting and crying as they were brushing their teeth. ”

“I’m sorry, really I am—”

“Why?” she cut him off, “We’re glad you got some help, but why did you come _here_?”

“I—uh—” he frowned, trying to remember his foggy reasoning from the night before “Miles?”

“He’s upstairs,” she answered.

“No. It was because Miles was here.”

Rachel glanced away and Bass heard some words muttered under her breath that he hadn’t heard from her since college. She swallowed and looked back at him.

“Charlie and Danny are waking up in two hours and you will be gone by then.” It was clear there was no room for argument.

She told Miles to take him home.

“And maybe work on making him less dependent on you,” she quipped, ignoring the look of shock on his face.

“Rachel—”

Her name, her stupid name, never could drop from his lips unless painted so carefully with all the concern and scorn and love she knew he felt for her.

The events of the night finally caught up and Rachel felt her eyes begin to itch. She rubbed them to avoid blinking conspicuously and excessively.

“I—I have to go deal with Ben now.”

“Go sleep if you can. I’ll give Bass the whooping he deserves.”

“Just—get him some help.”

Miles nodded and was off. He returned that evening with peace offerings of pizza and a rented DVD for the kids.

“Thank god it’s Friday, right?” he remarked to her, a test to see what had changed while he was gone.

Her tired smile was a smile nonetheless.

She didn’t mention what had happened, but Ben still glared and avoided them. Rachel tried to ask him to relax and join the rest of his family in watching the movie, but he took the opportunity to wander around the house doing odd jobs. She gave up after it was clear he wasn’t going to listen to her.

Charlie and Danny were enthralled with Miles’ gift, an animated kid’s movie he had randomly chosen. It was Rachel who started nodding off. As her head began to flirt dangerously with tipping forward, Miles tapped her lightly on the shoulder. She jumped hazily back to reality.

“Sorry,” she muttered, suppressing a yawn.

“You’re exhausted.”

“What gave it away?”

Charlie turned around to glare at them as only a five year old could.

“Shhh! It’s the crocodile part.”

Rachel moved forward to kiss her daughter’s head.

“Okay, sorry,” she joked.

Miles shifted closer on the couch.

She tried to tease him with a questioning eyebrow. He could tell her eyelids were too heavy and drowsy though because she only succeeded in contorting her face oddly.

“What?” he dared.

Rachel was too tired to argue and soon he felt the warm weight of her leaning on him as she drifted off again. Blonde curls spilled over his shoulder and he kept a watch on her out of the corner of his eye.

Ben lurked behind them in the kitchen, ruffling letters and bills that he was addressing to send off. Miles wasn’t going to turn around, but he could feel awkward tingle in his spine.

His brother was definitely watching them.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if Miles would have a break that long or if he did if he would actually find his own place, but I guess with the story I just wanted a reason for him to stay with them so please forgive my lack of knowledge as to military stuff like leaves/how much income he would have/what he would even be doing with his time. Also…toying with the idea of an AU where Blackout doesn’t happen?


End file.
